Quotes about Self-interest

We live by the assumption that what's good for us is good for the world. And this is based on the even flimsier assumption that we could know with any certainty what's good for us.

A person's toothache means more to that person than a famine in China which kills a million people. A boil on one's neck interests one more than forty earthquakes in Africa. Think of that the next time you start a conversation.

No sin is worse than the sin of self-pity, because it obliterates God and puts self-interest upon the throne.

Every good relationship we have is a gift of God's grace. Left to ourselves, nothing good would happen. Our problem has everything to do with sin and our potential has everything to do with Christ. Sin always draws towards self-interest. It is possible that even in our most altruistic moments are driven by what we get out of them

He who isolates himself pursues selfish desires; he rebels against all sound judgment.

The prophet Jeremiah said that 'from the least to the greatest, all are greedy for gain,'18 and the prophet Isaiah said, 'all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.'19 Our good deeds are stained with self-interest and our demands for justice are mixed with lust for vengeance. Ironically, it's the best people who most readily recognize and admit their own shortcomings and sin.

One is a path I've warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility.

Thus to forgive is indeed the best form of self-interest since anger, resentment, and revenge are corrosive of that summum bonum, that greatest good, communal harmony that enhances the humanity and personhood of all in the community.

self-interest is not the same as selfishness.

It's a law of survival, isn't it?—to seek the best. I didn't come for your sake. I came for mine.

Where self-interest is the bond, The friendship is dissolved When calamity comes. Where Tao is the bond, Friendship is made perfect By calamity.

charity is oftentimes really sensuality, for man's own inclination, his own will, his hope of reward, and his self-interest, are motives seldom absent. On the contrary, he who has true and perfect charity seeks self in nothing, but searches all things for the glory of God.